Dec 12, 2024

9 Tips for a Low Waste Holiday Season

by Krystina Jarvis

Listen to the audio of this post here:

This post first appeared in our weekly Make Waves Mondays email series on December 9, 2024.

Hello hello friend!

Let’s dive right into today’s wave making!

Today we’re doing a quick roundup of 9 ways to keep the holiday season as sustainable and low waste as possible.

Did you know that between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, the average household trash in the United States increases by about 25%?

Between gifting, decorating, and feasting - that’s a lot of waste!

But the good news is, there’s actually a lot we can do to mitigate that waste - and tbh, if you’re reading this, I have a hunch you’re already doing at least one or two of these 😉

Gifting

Give Good Gifts

One of the things I really dislike about this time of the year is the societal pressure to give things to ~everyone~ just because it’s the holidays.

During the 2021 holiday season, UPS alone processed 60,000,000 returns.

Now I’m not totally heartless, so I won’t tell you not give gifts this year, but I will encourage you to gift thoughtfully and intentionally:

Buy from a small business
Give the recipient something they actually want or need
Gift an experience
Drop the stigma around secondhand or regifted gifts
Gift your favorite low waste swap

If you need a list of ideas to get you started, check out our Ultimate Sustainable Gift Guide (with zero affiliate links ✌)

Wrap Gifts Sustainably

Did you know that wrapping paper isn’t recyclable?

Add in all the tissue paper, ribbon, and glitter-coated cards and that’s a whole lot of trash.

A whole lot of trash we’re intentionally paying for just to throw in the garbage…

If you’re giving physical gifts, be sure to wrap them up sustainably! Here’s 5 zero waste gift wrapping ideas if you need some inspo.

A Drop in the Ocean Shop Furoshiki Wraps

Decorating

Unplug Lights During the Day

Did you know that our electronics are forever pulling a wee bit of energy any time they’re plugged in, even if they’re turned off - including lights?

It’s called phantom energy, and it’s not only creating unnecessary emissions, it’s also costing you unnecessary dollars.

Banish the phantoms and save yourself some cash by unplugging your holiday lights during the daytime. I mean, no one can really see them anyway, so ya might as well!

Choose Sustainable Candles

This one’s relevant year-round, but especially if you’re celebrating Hanukkah, choose clean, sustainable candles made from soy wax or beeswax, rather than paraffin.

(Did you know that paraffin wax is actually a byproduct of petroleum?)

Properly Recycle Burnt Out Holiday Lights

Did you know that most holiday lights are made with compact fluorescent lightbulbs (or CFL bulbs), which contain mercury, lead, and other toxic metals that can leach into landfills and surrounding areas if they break?

Yeeahhh let’s avoid that if we can, mkay?

If you plug in your holiday lights this year only to discover they’re no longer lighting up your life, don’t just toss them in a landfill. Check if your city offers holiday light recycling, or send them in through a mail-in program instead!

(And keep an eye out for next week’s blog where we’ll explore several different holiday light recycling options a bit more in depth! 👀)

Feasting

Make 25% Less Food Than Expected

Did you know that if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the US? Not to mention all of the wasted money, resources, and labor that went into producing and transporting all that food…

While there are lots of factors that contribute to this, there’s also a lot we can do to mitigate it, the most important of which is to simply buy less food.

I know when we’re hosting our friends and family for holiday feasts, we want to make sure there’s no chance of running out of anything. But let’s be real, we’re more likely to end up with WAY MORE LEFTOVERS than we know what to do with.

So any time you’re hosting, try to make the intentional choice to buy about 25% less food than you think you’ll need.

You’ll thank me later.

Eat The Leftovers // Compost What You Can’t

Building on the food waste dilemma, if you end up with leftovers, be sure to do your best to actually eat them before they go bad!

But, if you can’t get to them all and they end up going bad in the fridge, make sure you compost them instead of tossing them in a landfill.

Did you know that food doesn’t actually biodegrade in a landfill? Landfills are intentionally designed to be massive storage containers, not giant compost piles. It can take a single head of lettuce - something that would biodegrade in just a couple of weeks in a compost pile - a whopping 25 years to decompose in a landfill.

Choose to Reuse Your Dinnerware

Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention using reusable dinnerware instead of disposable.

Even if you opt for “compostable” dinnerware, those items are only actually compostable in an industrial composting facility that accepts compostable plastics. (Spoiler alert: most don’t.) And if a head of lettuce is gonna take 25 years to decompose in a landfill, you can bet your booty that “compostable” plastic fork is gonna take a whole heck of a lot longer.

Now I know that you’re gonna say that using disposable dinnerware makes cleanup WAY easier, but I gotta let you in on a secret…

Cleanup from a disposable-free party is significantly easier than one riddled with disposables.

You know I’d never lie to you, friend.

Check out my full blog post on hosting a zero waste party to see why I believe this so strongly and some bonus tips for keeping your holiday dinner disposable-free.

Getting Outdoors

Join the Christmas Bird Count

And last but not least, get outside this holiday season and participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count!

More than a century old tradition, the Christmas Bird Count originated way back in 1900 by conservationists who wanted to encourage people to count birds on Christmas Day instead of hunting them.

Now, it’s a formal census of birds across North America, compiling data that contributes to important research on climate change and population trends.

Find a Christmas Bird Count in your area and learn more about the program on the Audubon website here.

And now, friend, I wanna hear what you’re doing this year to keep the holidays green! Comment below and share with me!

Have a wonderful week, and I’ll “see” you again next week 💙